“Oh, I don’t know!” said Pennie. “I like both. But I think perhaps it looks nicer in summer, because you see the flowers are in bloom and the old people are sitting on the benches, and all that.”
“I like winter best,” said Nancy, “because of making the toast.”
All the year round a visit to old Nurse was one of the children’s greatest pleasures, but it was specially so to Pennie. She now felt quite cheerful and happy in the prospect, not only because she was very fond of her, but because she lived in such an extremely delightful and interesting place. For Mrs Margetts, who had been Mrs Hawthorne’s nurse when she was a child, had now left service for many years and taken up her abode in the almshouse at Nearminster, or The College as it was called. Next to the cathedral Pennie thought it the nicest place she had ever seen, and there was something most attractive to her in its low-arched massive doors, its lattice windows with their small leaded panes, and its little old chapel where the pensioners had a service and a chaplain all to themselves.
The College was built in the form of a quadrangle, one side of which faced the High Street, so that though they were snugly sheltered within from noise and turmoil, the inmates could still look out upon the busy life they had quitted. As you passed the entrance you caught glimpses of bright green turf, of trim borders of flowers, of neat gravel paths and quaint old figures standing about, or sitting on stone benches against the walls. Over it all rested the air of peace and stillness. It was a place where neither hope nor fear, labour nor struggle could come. These were left outside in the troublesome world, and all who entered here had nothing more to do with them. They might sit in the sun with folded hands, talk over their past hardships, grumble a little at their present aches and pains, gossip a great deal, and so get gently nearer and nearer to the deepest rest of all.
The bishop, who had founded the College long ago, still stood carved in stone over the doorway, crozier in hand, watching the many generations of weary old souls who crept in at his gate for refuge. Pennie thought he had an expression of calm severity, as if he knew how ungrateful many of them were for his bounty, how they grumbled at the smallness of the rooms, the darkness of the windows, and the few conveniences for cooking. It must be hard for him to hear all those murmurs after he had done so much for them; but he had at any rate no want of gratitude to complain of in old Nurse, who was as proud of her two tiny rooms as though they had been a palace.
Mrs Margetts was in all matters disposed to think herself one of the most fortunate people upon earth. For instance, to be settled so near her dear “Miss Mary,” as she still called Mrs Hawthorne, and to have the pleasure of visits from the little “ladies and gentlemen,” was enough to fill anyone’s heart with thankfulness. What could she want more? She was indeed highly favoured beyond all desert. Other people may have thought that a life of faithful service and unselfish devotion to the interests of her employers had well earned the reward of a few quiet years at its end. But old Nurse did not look upon her good fortune as due to any merits of her own, but to the extraordinary kindness and generosity of others, so that she was in a constant state of surprise at their thoughtfulness and affection.
Not less did she cherish and respect the memory of the days which came before Mrs Hawthorne’s marriage, and this was what the children liked best to hear. Stories of Miss Mary, Master Charles, Miss Prissy, and the rest, who were now all grown-up people, never became wearisome, and certainly Nurse was never tired of telling them. Her listeners knew them almost by heart, and if by any chance she missed some small detail, it was at once demanded with a sense of injury.
Pennie, in particular, drank in her words eagerly, and would sit entranced gazing with an ever-new interest at the relics of the “family” with which the little room was filled. Hanging by the fireplace was a very faded kettle-holder, worked in pink and green wool by Miss Mary, now Mrs Hawthorne; on the mantel-piece a photograph of a family group, in which Miss Mary appeared at the age of ten in a plaid poplin frock, low in the neck and short in the sleeves, with her hair in curls; on each side of her stood a brother with a grave face and a short jacket.
There was a great deal to be told about this picture. Nurse remembered, she said, as if it was yesterday, the day it was “took.” Master Owen had a swollen cheek, and had cried and said he did not want his picture done, but he had been promised a pop-gun if he stood still, and had then submitted. And that was why he stood side-face in the photograph, while Master Charles faced you. It was almost past belief to Pennie and Nancy that Uncle Owen, who was now a tall man with a long beard, had ever been that same puffy-cheeked little boy, bribed to stand-still by a pop-gun.
There were also on the mantel-piece two white lions or “monsters,” as Nurse called them, presented by Miss Prissy, and quite a number of small ornaments given from time to time by the Hawthorne children themselves. But perhaps the crowning glory of Nurse’s room was a sampler worked by herself when a girl. Pennie looked at this with an almost fearful admiration, for the number of tiny stitches in it were terrible to think of. “I’m glad people don’t have to work samplers now,” she often said. This was indeed a most wonderful sampler, and it hung against the wall framed and glazed as it well deserved, a lasting example of industry and eyesight. At the top sat the prophet Elijah under a small green bush receiving the ravens, who carried in their beaks neat white bundles of food. Next came the alphabet, all the big letters first, and then a row of small ones. Then the Roman numerals up to a hundred, then a verse of poetry:—